By Doug Dingley
What’s with all the worms?!? Especially those of the half-baked to extra-crispy and overly crunchy variety found fried to death on the concrete sidewalks around the church building of late? What is it that causes so many worms to suddenly seek to make the journey out of and away from the soft, moist, muddy soil which protects and preserves them, up onto the unforgiving and sun baked concrete which then summarily cooks and kills them? What is the draw that makes them want to leave the shelter of the grass and ground, to expose themselves that openly to the birds who prey on them? Does the grass truly appear that much greener on the other side? Is the warmth of the concrete really so appealing to them that they just have to experience it – despite the slowly immobilizing, petrifying, and (presumably) painful and putrefying death it inevitably brings upon them? Can they not see the crippled, crusty, and crunchy corpses of their extended family members who tried it before them strewn all over the same sun baked surface?
Now of course I am applying human wisdom and the ability to think and reason to this situation, seeking to superimpose it onto the worm family – which cannot be done. After all, worms do not have a human brain. They cannot think and reason as we do, or, at least as we should…
You see, I cannot help but consider how similar this wormy sidewalk situation is to our fatal human attraction to sin. Although sin – like that sidewalk – may appear to be warm, inviting, and pleasurable, we both know and understand from the Scriptures as well as life in general that it is nothing more than a well-disguised death trap (Gen. 3:1-24; Isa. 59:1-2; Ro. 6:23; Gal. 5:19-21; 1 Jn. 2:15-17). It only requires the most casual of observations to see the death and destruction that seeking such sinful pursuits has caused so many others – both friend, foe, family member and complete stranger alike. Those of us who truly belong to, listen to, and follow close to the great Shepherd, know that the grass cannot be greener anywhere else on earth, other than where He is and lovingly seeks to lead us (Ps. 23:1-6, 100:1-5; Jn. 10:1-30, 14:1-3).
Let us let the crispy critter corpses of the once-lively worms that often litter our surrounding sidewalks be an ever-present reminder of the powerful pull and always deadly outcome of succumbing to the alluring enticements of sin… lest we eventually join them, where: “Their worm does not die and the fire is not quencheď (Isa. 6:22-24; Mk. 9:43-50).